


Invited In

by thefourofswords



Series: Follow That Road [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Anal Sex, Being Walked In On, Established Relationship, First Time, Frottage, Intercrural Sex, Kidnapping, M/M, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Dreams, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:29:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25083910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefourofswords/pseuds/thefourofswords
Summary: “What? How the hell was I supposed to get ‘I wanna spend my life with you’ from that?” Steve cries.“You’re supposed to read between the lines, moron. Me giving you my liver? Fighting tooth and nail to keep Grace here? Tracking you down multiple times in hostile foreign nations? Moving into your house? Read between the lines.”“Oh, I see, so I was supposed to read between the lines and also inform you of your so obvious sexual interest in me that you didn’t even know about?”*Steve and Danny navigate what it means for them to be in love.
Relationships: Kono Kalakaua/Adam Noshimuri, Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Series: Follow That Road [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816699
Comments: 36
Kudos: 230





	Invited In

**Author's Note:**

> Hey it's me! Confusingly back with a name change. This was literally supposed to be a PWP sequel, because I managed to write 20,000 words of fic without anal once! A record! But when I wasn't looking it got almost as long as the original, and I'm not even really sure how! Which, speaking of the original, you probably don't _need_ to read it, but I would recommend it. 
> 
> Many hands make light work though. Thanks go to turningterrific for letting me pelt her with questions and ideas at all hours. And to joyfulseeker who read it when I made her, because I thought I needed a sanity check. And then to andsparkles who wrangled all my commas into something resembling proper english during her fourth of July.

Danny

When Grace decided at the end of her first year of college that she wanted to do NROTC, Danny actually considered murdering Steve. How could he have let his daughter get this insane idea into her head? Danny hated the military, in no small part for the way they’d chewed Steve and spit him back out again, repeatedly. And now here his baby was, pursuing a commission? It was only when he saw Steve’s own thunderstruck surprise that he relaxed. That and the fact that she’d chosen the Navy Nurse option, which Steve pointed out meant she’d never be boots on the ground.

“I’m not gonna be a medic, Danno,” she’d told him with a roll of her eyes, like he was being a total idiot. “Also, now you can stop complaining about me bankrupting you with tuition! If I can get a scholarship, it’s all taken care of.” 

He realizes now, watching Steve talk on the phone with her about her upcoming active duty in San Diego during the summer, why it was so important to her. Being the child of divorced parents meant Grace had had many extra parental figures over the years, but this was her way of declaring herself Steve’s kid too, and she’d done it before they’d even gotten together. Sometimes Danny wonders how many people in their lives knew before they did. Nobody current or former in 5-0 had been shocked, exactly, but there had been some surprise. 

Tani even went so far as to say, “I just assumed if either of you had been born a girl, it would’ve been a given, but you were too, ahem, ‘manly’ to give dick a try.” 

The air quotes could be heard from space, and Steve had gotten a look in his eye that Danny knew meant he was going to say something ridiculous and embarrassing about their sex life so Danny had rapidly started an argument about what to cook for dinner. 

They were weird about each other, of course they were. Danny had always been cognizant of that, even if he couldn’t explain what that was or why. He was so confused between what he wanted and what he thought he should have. Steve had been the other half of his heart for so long. And now here he is, watching Steve tell Grace that he loves her and to be good, and that they’d talk soon. That heart no longer fits in his chest. He should’ve realized he was in love the day that Steve had come for them after her school dance was held up. He remembers the awkward welling of feeling and the way he’d dealt with that by jokingly telling Steve to pick a base. 

“Uh oh,” Steve says, looking up and catching him staring. “I know that look.” 

“‘Uh oh,’ he says, what do you mean, ‘uh oh?’” Danny replies, unfairly goaded by that teasing tone of Steve’s. 

“Hard at work,” Steve says with a broad grin, “thinking too much.” 

Danny snorts, but doesn’t take the bait. “Just wondering why we never figured this out sooner,” he says. 

“Kamekona’s branded t-shirts for the restaurant probably should’ve told us,” Steve muses and Danny grimaces. That had been so awkward and vaguely terror-inducing at the time. Steve cocks his head, with a soft smile that Danny is still getting used to having aimed at him. “At the time I was just horrified you’d figure me out.” 

“For the record, I’m the lady, and you’re the tramp,” Danny says. 

Danny doesn’t say that that same feeling had been there for him too, although he hadn’t understood that that was what the fear was. It had translated into feeling oddly violated, that somebody saw so deep to the heart of him, when he couldn’t even look at it himself. He clears his throat. “I think Harry was probably trying to tell us when he mocked us for the restaurant.” 

“Everybody mocked us for the restaurant,” Steve points out. 

“But,” Danny says, “he was the only one who said we were only doing it to stay together.” 

I really am an idiot, Danny thinks once it’s out of his mouth. He’d always thought he was too good at seeing the truth of things, and yet here he was, capable of nearly ten whole years of self-delusion. 

“Hey,” Steve says, seemingly intuiting the bent his thoughts have taken, “we’re here now.” 

“You said once that you wanted to have kids,” Danny says tentatively. They’re going to have to have this conversation sooner or later, and it’s been weighing on him for a few weeks now, a horrible dark pall lurking at the corners of the deep contentment he’s felt, having Steve in his bed, having his name put on the deed to the house (because Steve can never stop planning for his eventual death). Danny doesn’t think he could do another one. He has one kid that’s about to turn 20, and another one only just arriving at the age where you could have actual conversations with him, and it’s been an uphill battle the whole way. But he also knows he doesn’t want to live life without Steve. They’re at the 1-2 points, as Adam would say, and now they’ve got to figure this out. 

“Do you know what Alicia told me?” Steve says, seemingly apropos of nothing. 

Danny stares at him. “Alicia? The profiler?” 

Steve nods. “She said sometimes the family you build is better than the one you’re given.” 

In Steve’s case, no truer words had ever been spoken. It’s not something that Danny’s going to go blasting from the rooftops, but objectively, Steve’s parents had sucked. He’s not sure what that has to do with wanting kids. 

Steve continues, “I want you more than I want some random children that don’t even exist. There is nothing,” he says firmly, “that could ever convince me to give you up.” 

And what is Danny supposed to do with that kind of declaration but walk over there, gently tilt Steve’s jaw up so that he’s looking back at Danny. 

“Oh, hello,” Steve says when they make eye contact, pupils visibly expanding in his irises, the long line of his neck extended to look up at Danny. Danny strokes a careless hand down Steve’s throat, and then presses a swift kiss to his mouth before straightening up. This is what you yearn for, somebody who’s willing to make sacrifices for you, somebody who thinks you’re worthy of it, even when you don’t see it yourself.

☀

Steve

Steve is not good at awkward conversations. He’s not good at articulating his emotional needs (what emotional needs?), mostly because he never has without Danny forcing him to. Which is why he finds himself in the shower while Danny putters around audibly downstairs, one foot propped up on the rim of the tub, while he preps himself. He doesn’t really know where Danny is on anal sex, from either side, although he assumes that like most men who’ve ever identified as “straight” Danny is probably pro-pitching and has tried it a time or two with female partners. But Danny has weird quirks and dislikes about all sorts of things Steve can’t predict. And frankly, Steve doesn’t want to hear about what he might or might not have gotten up to with Melissa or Gabby or Rachel of any of them. So he hopes when Danny comes up to bed, Steve can just make clear it’s on the table, and Danny can say yea or nay from there.

He winces when he slides in a second finger. He always starts out tight when he hasn’t done this in a while, rim clenching involuntarily until he eases himself back into it, reminding himself it’ll feel good later. He rarely fingers himself, out of sheer expediency more than anything else. If he wants to masturbate, watching porn and jerking out a quick one is just easier, and that’s what his life has looked like for the last couple of years. 

It’s almost revelatory, actually having good orgasms again now that he and Danny are together. He has a lot more energy and drive for sex, which he partially attributes to also feeling physically and mentally much better, but he also deeply enjoys sleeping with Danny who has a surprisingly filthy mouth and a way of investing the whole of himself in sex that Steve finds absolutely addictive. 

Steve gets a lot out of bottoming, but he’s definitely been called bossy before, which is, in and of itself, not enjoyable, as if the behavior should somehow be linked to how he likes his ass stimulated. If he was topping they’d say “dominant,” and out of the bedroom it would be assertive. Or commandeering and overbearing, if you asked Danny’s opinion, he thought with a smile. 

Steve knows that on some level he expects, and perhaps even demands, that people listen to him when he tells them to do something. He’s eased off the clutch a lot in the last ten years, mostly due to Danny’s influence, but you didn’t make it into the SEALS as an officer if you weren’t confident in making decisions for other people. There’d been a sea of enlisted personnel for every single officer and it had been incredibly competitive to prove that he had the temperament for it. Not that that determined what he was like in bed, more that he couldn’t turn it off and had never had much of the desire to do so. He was what he was. So yeah, he’s a fucking bossy bottom, but as far as he can envision, if Danny says yes, he expects that to be okay. 

He hadn’t meant to put it off, exactly. First he’d waited until he could get his preferred brand of lube, and then second, they kept getting so caught up in the moment, he wasn’t about to derail it in the middle by running off to the bathroom. But tonight feels like a good night, not least because of the way that Danny had looked at him and kissed him downstairs, like the prelude to something big.

☀

Danny

Danny jokes a lot that when Steve is left alone, quiet by himself, he’s at his most likely to do something he shouldn’t, like a bad puppy. But he’s also found it’s the truth, especially in the last few years. Steve is a social person, as much as he likes to trick himself into thinking he’s better off alone. Without supervision and check-ins you never knew when he might decide to break into a random building or abscond to places he wasn’t supposed to be. Some time in the last hour, Steve disappeared upstairs, and he hasn’t come back down or indicated that he’s heading to bed. Which logically means Danny has to go up and investigate. For Steve’s well-being, of course, and not because Danny has categorically grown to hate being away from Steve, even when they’re in the same house. That’s codependent and weird, and Danny isn’t like that. Much. He thinks. Sometimes.

The sight that greets him is Steve, naked, half hard, and vigorously towel-drying his hair as stray droplets of water run down over his muscles. Proof that going after him was an excellent idea. And then he notices the lube and condoms sitting on the edge of the bed and his brain screeches to a halt. 

Steve follows his gaze to the items and then looks back over at Danny with a shrug, still distractingly naked. “I thought we might try it, but if it’s not for you, no pressure.” 

“Who?” Danny blurts. “You or me?” 

Steve smiles at his wide-eyed expression. “Relax, Danno, I wouldn’t just spring that on you,” he says with a soft devastating chuckle that does things to Danny’s stomach. “Me.” 

He swipes the towel down over his body like Danny’s eyes aren’t glued to every bare inch of him, and the worst part is, Danny knows he isn’t even trying. Like this, Steve is already breathtaking, but when he’s actually trying, Danny can barely remember his own name. It feels incredibly unfair. 

“If you want to, that is,” Steve says, staring at him, and Danny realizes he’s been silent too long. 

“I want to,” he croaks out, but doesn’t move. He hasn’t thought this far ahead, in fact he’s maybe deliberately avoided thinking this far ahead, because well, loving Steve isn’t new, but clearly and concretely thinking about bending him over and fucking him is relatively new. Also the idea that he might be interested in Steve’s cock in other, uh, salient places is _very_ new. Sometimes Danny needs a bit to chew on an idea to really come to terms with it. Read: spending the rest of his life in the state of Hawaii. 

He watches as Steve sits on the edge of the mattress and leans back on one elbow, pretty as a picture; eyes on Danny, he gives his cock a slow stroke, and then spreads his thighs, baring his hole, shiny with what Danny assumes is lube. 

All he has in him is a single, eloquent, “Fuck.”

☀

Steve

Sitting with his hand on his cock still, stroking himself to full hardness, he watches the change in Danny in real time. He goes from the uncharacteristic deer in the headlights look, to that familiar focused calm Steve has seen in the field. Watching his hothead of a partner go from loudmouth to cooly competent and lethal in the span of a moment had always done inappropriate things to him. Now that it’s happening in their bedroom, it’s threatening to turn Steve to jelly. He has _never_ felt like this about another person. Watching Danny walk over to him in what can only be described as a saunter, that focused look on his face, makes his cock jump in his hand.

Danny pushes between his spread legs, hands firm but precise as he cups Steve’s chin in his palms and drags him upwards into a kiss. Steve has to brace both palms on the mattress to keep from collapsing back onto it like a quivering teenager. Danny fucks his mouth with his tongue in soft wet stabs that has Steve groaning. He doesn’t even notice one of Danny’s hands has dropped away from his jaw until he feels fingers brushing over his hole, back and forth, before sliding inside two at a time, and following the natural curve of his body to stroke right over his prostate. 

Steve tears his mouth away from Danny’s to breathe out raggedly, “Either you’ve done your research or you enjoy this yourself.” 

Danny chuckles warmly as he flexes his fingers inside Steve, provoking another deep groan, his sea blue eyes darkened to that stormy color Steve loves so much. “I enjoy this myself. Especially,” he flexes them again, making Steve’s hips jolt, “when I’m getting blown.” 

Steve files that away. He had considered and discarded it every time he took Danny into his mouth, because he hadn’t wanted to push it. He knew that Danny’s definition of himself was still rapidly expanding, and well, Steve is not often good at having difficult, awkward conversations, especially without Danny’s prompting. 

“And while this is a very nice surprise,” Danny says, fingers stroking back and forth unerringly over the gland in a way that has Steve’s mouth dropping open on a gasp, “next time you better let me open you up.” 

“I like getting fucked more than I like getting fingered,” Steve replies, even as he drops back onto his elbows with a grunt, overcome with another jolt of pleasure as Danny curls his fingers and presses upward hard. 

“I’d like to see if I could change your mind about that,” Danny tells him, finally following him down onto the bed, still fully clothed in his t-shirt and shorts, a reassuring and grounding weight over him. 

Steve starts tugging at his shirt, shivering a little when Danny drags his fingers free to help shrug out of it, his shorts and underwear quickly following. He strains up over Steve’s body, reaching for the condoms, and Steve can’t help pressing a kiss to the soft inside of his forearm, before saying, “Only if you want to.” 

“In that case,” Danny says and bats the box of condoms away like it offends him, making Steve laugh unbidden. 

When Danny sits back on his heels to slick himself up, Steve can’t look away from his capable hand dragging up and down that gorgeous thick cock. He reaches up over his head and tugs a pillow down, lifting up to shove it under his hips. He doesn’t ordinarily like to fuck missionary style, especially not when he’s bottoming, but there’s precious little that could make him look away from Danny’s muscular compact body, and he’s grown to adore the way Danny kisses during sex, especially when he’s right about to make it, mouth going slack against Steve’s, breathing his moans into Steve’s lungs.

Under Danny’s level gaze, Steve hooks his leg over a forearm, pulling it back to his chest, knowing his exposed hole is flared and open. Danny’s tongue swipes out over his lower lip and then he’s knee-walking up the bed, sliding between Steve’s parted thighs. Despite the look of intent upon his face, he doesn’t exactly get with the program, choosing instead to tease Steve with tapping his cockhead against his hole. He drags it up and down Steve’s crease, flared head catching on his rim with every pass, as if Steve’s body is trying to suck him inside. Steve’s thigh muscles are straining already and he knows he must look halfway to insane, because that’s how he feels. 

Finally, finally, just as Steve’s on the edge of demanding that Danny get to it, he starts to work his cock inside. Steve doesn’t like this part even when he’s getting it regularly, the pressure of those first few millimeters somehow amplified in his brain. The crown finally pops past his rim, and Steve exhales. 

“Okay?” Danny asks evenly, eyes skipping back between where his ridiculously thick cock is piercing Steve open and Steve’s face. He looks inhumanly calm compared to the endless churn of emotions Steve is sure shows on his own face. 

“Been a while,” Steve says. He isn’t going to hand Danny any ammunition by telling him this is by far the biggest cock he’s ever taken. Most of his fucks were completely normal, not bordering on porn dick big. 

Danny nods, drags his lower lip between his teeth. He leans down, bracing his elbows on either side of Steve’s head, using the motion to work more of himself inside. He doesn’t bottom out, which is probably smart, wielding that weapon and all. 

Danny brushes their noses together. “Still good?” he asks, but this time he sounds a little hoarse, like his patience is costing him. 

Steve flexes against him, eyelids fluttering helplessly when the motion grinds Danny’s cock right into his prostate. Danny leans in, shoulder pressing Steve’s thigh back to his chest, and does it again. Steve moans helplessly. 

“Right there, huh?” Danny says, and Steve nods, eyes shut tight as Danny moves into a slow but steady rhythm. He can’t look at Danny when he’s watching Steve with that expression on his face. It’s too much. Steve doesn’t know what he did to earn it. Sometimes this feels like a mistake, like he might wake up and find himself on the banks of the river freezing his nuts off, missing Danny so much he’s sick with it. But that insistent repetitive pressure against his prostate lights him up inside, dragging him back into the moment. 

Steve turns his head to bring their mouths together and Danny groans, kissing back for all he’s worth, his hands coming up to frame Steve’s face. Steve does his best to throw everything he’s got back at him, ignoring his cock for fear it’ll be over too quickly. Which feels slightly ludicrous, because it’s not like they won’t ever get to do this again. The flex of Danny’s trim body against his, the soft sounds he makes like he’s savoring it—it’s not just that Danny’s good in bed. Steve had foolishly tortured himself assuming that was true. It’s that he seems to be getting every bit as much out of it as Steve. It isn’t lost on him that Danny hasn’t sped up, hasn’t put more force behind his thrusts. They’re both just dwelling in this space, fucking as foreplay, learning each other in this new context. It’s revelatory. Like Danny could stop moving altogether, and they could exist like this, entwined, tangled up in each other for all time. 

Steve sucks in a breath, just as the enormity of that thought is starting to scare him a little, Danny shifts, sliding a forearm under Steve’s shoulder, using it to tug Steve down onto his cock as he drives inside him. 

“Oh fuck,” Steve says as Danny ratchets up the power behind his motions. He’s drilling straight into Steve’s prostate so precisely he can barely remember his own name. 

“Hey,” Danny whispers, pressing a kiss to his temple, “whatcha thinking about?” 

Steve laughs helplessly. What’s he thinking? He’s wondering why Danny’s so unfairly good at this, he’s wondering if he could take Danny’s whole dick, he’s wondering if Danny keeps that up, could he actually come? Just from Danny’s cock alone? Usually he has to draw a fucking map to get it anywhere near this good, but Danny’s got him. 

Steve arches underneath him, mouth open on a wordless gasp, as Danny speeds up. At some point, he dropped the hand he was using to hold himself open, allowing Danny’s weight to take care of it, and now that same hand is fisted white-knuckled in the sheets. He didn’t even know it could be like this. 

“Please, Steve,” Danny begs, and it takes Steve precious seconds to sort out what he’s asking for.

“I’m thinking—I’m thinking that I’m—going to c—” he interrupts himself with a whimper, overwhelmed. It centers inside, expanding outward in waves, somehow separate from his dick, and yet not. His muscles go involuntarily taut all over at the moment of climax and then his dick jets out a flood. 

“Oh god,” Danny mutters, practically vibrating with tension. Lost as he is in the strongest orgasm of his life, Steve realizes Danny must be close too. He pushes back against Danny, hard, taking him even deeper until Danny bottoms out with a ragged sob. He barely pulls out before thrusting back inside, _hard_. Steve’s still coming, a soft “unh” involuntarily punched out of his lungs. 

Danny closes his teeth on Steve’s shoulder, muffling himself, right before his cock pulses inside him with an explosively forceful burst of come, enough that it starts oozing out of Steve’s hole through Danny’s last few strokes. He pauses, rigid above Steve for a long moment, before collapsing gracelessly. Steve curls his body around him, holding him close.

They stay like that until Danny’s cock slips out and Steve’s back starts to twinge from remaining half-pretzeled underneath him. He feels a moment's worth of mourning for what they could’ve gotten up to when Steve was in his athletic prime, but then lets it go because he doesn’t have time for regrets when he’s finally got what he so desperately wanted. 

“Well fuck,” Danny says, lifting his head to meet Steve’s eyes. He swipes his hand through his hair, dragging the longer strands back up off his forehead, before sitting back on his heels. 

Steve yanks the pillow out from under his spine as soon as Danny’s up, and then sinks right back down again, winded and languorous. He’s never come from penetration before and it feels like his system is still cycling through reboot. 

Danny settles beside him, chin propped on his bicep, like he’s watching for signs of distress.

“Is it always like that for you?” Danny asks, reaching out to trace over Steve’s chest and down to the surgical scar with light fingers. 

Steve shifts onto his side, meeting Danny’s gaze. “You asking if I can always come from a prostate orgasm?” 

Danny shrugs. 

“Well I’ve never had one before, so I dunno,” Steve tells him with a smile. 

“Jesus,” Danny says, “You oughta come with a warning label.” 

“‘I persevere and thrive on adversity,’” Steve says straight-faced. Danny bats him with the discarded pillow before he can recite the rest, and Steve descends into laughter, yanking the pillow out of his hand, and leaning up to kiss him.

Danny

He knows the team finds his newfound good mood hilarious and unexpected, but he’s not sure why they’re surprised. Steve is home, they’re living together, and he actually gets to drive his own car. Better yet, Steve is far, far away from explosions, bullets, enriched uranium, rooftops he can jump off of, menacing industrial equipment—well, Steve can make anything dangerous. But he’s not doing that now. His job with FEMA starts in two months, and the most dangerous activity that he’s engaging in right now is a little spearfishing. It’s excellent.

They’re sitting at their usual table at Kamekona’s, discussing the lead Lincoln and Quinn are chasing down, when Danny realizes they’ve all gone silent. 

“What?” he asks, looking up from texting Steve to find them all staring at him expectantly. 

“Look at you smiling at your phone all sweet,” Tani says. “Is this what getting laid regularly does for you?” 

“Don’t sexually harass your boss,” Lou tells her. “Besides, I saw him through two different girlfriends, _and_ an ill-advised attempt to reconcile with his wife, and he wasn’t that cheerful. No, this is new.” 

“Ill-advised!” Danny shoots back. “You were the one suggesting I go for it when she started divorce proceedings. Ill-advised. That’s some revisionist history right there.” 

“I only suggested it because you kept saying you ‘liked’ your girlfriend,” he replies, with full on air quotes. “You’re not supposed to ‘like’ your girlfriend of four years, brother, if I’d known getting up in McGarret’s business would do something for your bad attitude, I would’ve suggested it off the hop.” 

“Ugh,” Danny says, throwing his hands up. 

“So I was just saying, has anybody updated Quinn about the Nakajima case?” Adam says mildly, trying to rescue him with shop talk. Adam is a real mensch. Thank god. He needs at least one person who won’t try to bust his balls at every opportunity.

Kamekona swings by the table to drop off their orders and chooses that fabulous moment to wade in with, “You give Steve the D?” 

“Did I give—” Danny’s horrified. He can’t even give such effrontery a response. What’s wrong with these people?

“Ooh, he’s blushing,” Tani singsongs before taking a large bite of shrimp. Talking with her mouth full, she says, “He totally gave Steve the D.” 

“You know, it was Steve’s idea to hire you all,” Danny warns. “Don’t go giving me the idea to replace you with some nice respectful by-the-book officers out of HPD.”

Junior scoffs. “Then you’d have to stay longer to get them all up to speed. You wouldn’t shoot yourself in the foot like that.” 

Danny stares at him, astonished. He didn’t realize he’d been that obvious about his intentions. He didn’t even realize he’d had intentions until Steve showed back up again and said he wasn’t coming back. Once that happened Danny couldn’t think of any good reason to keep it up without him. Danny hadn’t gotten around to being serious about those intentions. Why does he work with so many freakin’ gung ho cowboys?

“C’mon,” Tani says gently, “we all know that without him your heart’s not in it anymore.” 

Danny looks up at Kamekona when he makes a humming noise. “Pretty obvious, brah.” 

“You are being so helpful today, thank you,” Danny says. 

Kamekona ignores the sarcasm. “A'ole pilikia.” 

“It’s all good,” Tani tells him, socking him on the arm, “we’ll miss you, but I’ll take fantastic care of 5-0, promise.” 

Danny lets out an incredulous laugh. “Please, like I would ever be so foolish as to put you in charge.” 

“Who else?” Tani replies outraged. As if she wasn’t the second-most junior member of the team. 

“Adam, obviously.” 

Adam looks up, eyes wide. “Really?” 

Danny shrugs. “Lou doesn’t want it, and the head of a yakuza syndicate falls under relevant job experience in my book.” 

“Are you sure the governor will accept me as the face of the 5-0?” Adam says, clearly blown over. 

“Hah, yeah, that’ll be an uphill battle,” Danny replies, “but Steve suggested hiring an actual comms person and a public safety liaison.” 

“That seems really unlike him,” Tani says. 

“God, I know. That’s the worst part. Steve actually knows about running an organization,” Danny says with a beleaguered sigh. “When I asked him about it, he said he just _chose_ to structure 5-0 like a SEAL team.” 

Junior bursts out laughing. “You didn’t know that?” 

“No,” Danny says, “No, I did not _know_ that, because what kind of insane person would ever run a task force like that if they knew there were other options?” 

“Consider it an honor,” Junior explains. “He thought you could perform at the level he expected of his platoon, and he treated you like an E-6.” 

“An E-6? What the hell is an E-6,” Danny asks

“The NCO,” Junior tells him, rolling his eyes, like Steve should’ve given him the full SEAL org chart or something. Hell Steve might’ve, but Danny definitely chose not to pay attention. 

“Ooh, ooh, what does that make the rest of us?” Tani asks. 

“A loudmouth?” Danny shoots back. 

They ease into their usual banter, and Danny’s glad leaving 5-0 is out in the open now. He still has no fucking clue what he’s going to do next, but he doesn’t think he’s leaving it in the wrong hands. Steve hadn’t thought so anyway. He understood exigent circumstances that forced bad decision making better than most anyone. He’s just thinking about how Adam will do fine, when his eyes snag at something at the corner of his periphery. Two men in full business attire, prowling the beach. Danny still doesn’t dress down for the office, but he’s considerably more laid back than these two gentlemen. 

“What’s that about?” he asks, nodding at them. 

Adam, who’d gone from Danny’s lone buddy in business casual to denim and short sleeve shirts, looks over and snorts. “There’s some global conference on agriculture in the pacific going on right now. Place has been crawling with diplomatic security.” 

“Huh,” Tani says, “Imagine having to stand at the edge of the beach in a penguin suit while your boss gets to go swimming.” 

Danny laughs, about to correct her, but Lou beats him to it. “That’s what you think is a penguin suit? Child please, remind me to make you look at my wedding photos.” 

“I don’t think that’s quite the own you think it is,” Tani replies.

Steve

Danny had reported it was a slow day at the Palace, and Steve started on dinner, reasonably sure nothing would explode in the last hour and keep him from making it on time. He smiles helplessly when Danny lets himself in the front door, whistling something slightly off key.

Danny effectively lived with him for months before Steve’s trip to the mainland, but it feels different now when he comes home, like a little jolt of happiness and satisfaction he’s not sure he’ll ever get used to. Steve listens to him drop his keys and badge on the table, and smiles without looking up from his chopping when Danny strides into the kitchen, turns to the wall safe to deposit his weapon next to Steve’s unused sidearm like clockwork. Maybe it’s knowing that this is routine. That Danny had made himself such a permanent fixture he’d installed a not inexpensive gun safe. 

He thinks Danny had expected a bigger fight about Steve no longer having his own gun ready to hand, but Steve understood that if Charlie was going to be living here part of the time, he couldn’t just stash a 9mm in the nightstand. Watching Danny shut it and redo the code, the safe well above child height, makes him reflect back on the way his father had never taken such precautions. It was honestly lucky Mary had never had any kind of accident, the way she got into things.

Routine taken care of, Steve loves this side of Danny, when he sets the detective sergeant aside, loosens his collar and gets a beer out of the fridge to unwind. Danny says, “Hey, beautiful.” 

At first Steve thinks he’s talking to the beer, but then he realizes his answering laugh was not the expected response when it’s met with sudden silence. “Oh you mean me? Beautiful?” Steve says skeptically, going back to chopping a shallot. “Don’t lay it on too thick now.” 

Danny takes a deep pull on the neck of the bottle, his eyes narrowed on Steve the whole time, and god, could he not do that? Steve’s gonna end up mauling him on the floor with his onion-y hands, and nobody wants that. 

Danny, seemingly oblivious, takes another swallow and then says, “Why do you always downplay what you look like?” 

He’s annoyed, Steve registers, and it makes him pause. Does Danny actually expect an answer to that? Steve full body shrugs, setting the diced shallots aside to start in on a bunch of cilantro. He doesn’t know what else to say, but being beautiful sits a little weird. 

When he was young he played football, and he wore a uniform, so he didn’t exactly struggle getting laid. But he’d had a horrific ugly duckling phase that makes him laugh now. Once he hit puberty and his childhood cuteness disappeared, his features just didn’t come together quite right. It took a broken nose and his late 20s for his looks to really suit him. Not that he was a complete lost cause. He’d always had what girls called pretty eyes, and the pouty lower lip had gotten him out of a few tight spots. But. His face had been awkward. 

The first guy he’d ever fucked—fresh off his plebe year, raw and green, and so unsure of himself and his sexuality he wound up hooking up with someone closer to his parent’s age than his own—had cupped Steve’s cheeks after it was over and peered into his face like he was doing an exam and said, “Don’t worry about it, kid, you’ll be a looker one day.” 

He’d been neither insulted nor flattered, because he knew his own acne prone skin and teeth that were slightly too big for his face. He’d gotten his dick sucked and been fucked through the mattress, so he was flying pretty high off of that alone. It sorta felt like a thing somebody might say to you after an orgasm—‘hey, you’re not bad looking!’ 

He hadn’t cried into his breakfast cereal about it. He was never going to clean up like Freddie did at the secret off-campus houses the older midshipmen rented in Arnold back in the day. But that was okay. He had a good body and some people would do anything for a man in dress whites, especially an officer. 

Catherine hadn’t even looked twice at him through four years at the Academy and another four in Naval Intelligence. It wasn’t until they ran into each other by complete chance at a bar on the other side of BUD/S that she finally “noticed” him. But after those particular 24 weeks of hell, his face had finally let go of the last baby fat around the cheeks and jawline, and it had balanced out his nose and high forehead in a way that had girls buying him drinks to “thank him” for his service. He hadn’t been aware of it himself, having looked at his own face in the mirror for years on end, but every place he and his buddies hit he was suddenly a hot fucking commodity. And yet, with so many frog hogs and tag chasers around he never quite assumed that translated into being, well, beautiful, like Danny was saying, if he meant it seriously or whatever. The mere thought made him uncomfortable. 

He looks up from the cilantro at Danny and finds him leaning back against the wall, eyes on him, waiting for some kind of answer Steve’s not sure he has. 

The most formative years of his life he’d always been the tag-along friend, not some kind of stud. He was good looking for a SEAL. Hadn’t broken his nose too many times or had that unfortunate flattened face look like he’d been hit with a shovel, wasn’t growing his hair out like a grizzly bear, and his tattoos weren’t embarrassing moto shit. Hard not to be an improvement from that. When that changed, it was merely more information. It was probably listed in his file along with his ASVAB and PST scores. Steve had grown into a good looking man. That was potentially useful. 

“I don’t really know what to say,” Steve finally tells him. “I’m—” he stops, “I’ve, I dunno, I’ve had to push myself to the absolute limits to achieve what I wanted to.”

Danny raises his brows and nods for him to continue. 

Steve sighs. “It has always been more about my body’s functionality and what I demanded of myself. I’m aware that I’m attractive, but I imagine that has a lot to do with who I am and what I do.” 

Danny straightens up from the wall and very quietly sets his beer down on the kitchen island. 

“Are you crazy?” Danny demands with an accompanying outraged hand gesture. Going from 0 to 60 in moments like only he can. “I’m sorry, did you somehow miss all the people blatantly hitting on you on sight over the years? I mean, when you got all jealous over Lori, I thought you were being particularly obtuse because it was so freakin obvious she was throwing herself at you, but you’re telling me you actually straight didn’t know?” 

Steve sets his knife down to cross his arms. Fine, if they’re doing this, then they’re doing this. 

“I was not jealous over Lori, I was jealous _of_ Lori,” he grits out. “I knew you would start to date eventually, because you like that stuff! You’re a flirt! And there’s nothing wrong with that. But when I showed up at the hotel room that day and you were obviously up to something, all I could think about was how terrible it would be if it was happening right there at work. At least with everybody else I didn’t have to watch!” 

“There was nothing going on that day! She wanted to make you jealous, and I played along, because I thought hey, here’s a nice attractive young woman interested in Steve, and it seemed like it worked.” 

Steve can’t believe this. He hadn’t spared two thoughts for Lori once she was out of sight. Everybody had teased Steve about being possessive of Danny the whole day, and Danny thought Steve was obtuse? “I left you handcuffed, not her! I didn’t give two shits what she was up to. I was sorry to lose a capable team member when she left, but I have no clue why she told me how she felt, because anybody with two eyes knew I was thoroughly hung up on you.” 

Danny looks poised to argue further, but he must think better of it, because he sighs. “Babe, I wish you’d told me.” 

“Well, I didn’t think you would ever be interested, and I—” his voice is alarmingly unsteady and he breaks off to take a deep breath, before saying the rest, “I didn’t want to lose you.” 

“I think I probably would have said yes, if you’d ever asked,” Danny says, coming around the island to hug Steve from behind. 

Steve places a palm over the hands wrapped around his waist, even as he looks skeptically over his shoulder at Danny. 

“I’m serious!” Danny insists, forcing Steve to turn around. “How I feel about you hasn’t suddenly changed into something else in the last few months, it isn’t new, I’m just aware of it differently!” 

Steve has been very unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he isn’t going to hash out how and when exactly Danny discovered long-buried feelings of his own. He’s just glad it happened to begin with. But he also remembers all too well the way Danny said ‘that’s what you bumped on?’ when that coed had assumed they were together. It’s a little hard to picture. 

Danny slides his hands up Steve’s biceps. “Do you remember that camp out? With the Aloha Girls?” 

“I think it netted me a marriage proposal, if I recall correctly,” Steve says. 

“Do you know the terror I felt when I got out of that storage shed? You were up that mountain with that idiot, so I left my eleven-year-old daughter to go after you, and fuck, I nearly didn’t make it in time.” He ducks his head. “I cried in the shower that night.” 

Steve blinks at him. “Why?” 

“Because I’m not like you. You enjoy jumping out of airplanes and scaling mountains and throwing yourself into danger. Any day now I expect you to take up extreme ironing, or ice climbing, or god only knows what else, so you can get your kicks in now that you’re not in the field. It’s not easy loving somebody who takes such incredible risks.” 

“Ice climbing can be perfectly safe,” Steve points out because he’s made needling Danny into an extreme sport of its own. 

Danny rolls his eyes. “Just, I didn’t know what it meant, but it was there. Going anywhere near the thought of it felt so incredibly inappropriate, so I just didn’t. I’m sure if you had told me how you felt I probably wouldn’t have reacted well—” 

Steve snorts. 

“—in the moment,” Danny continues, squeezing his biceps in warning. “But I woulda got there once you gave me a couple of hours.” 

“If you say so,” Steve says, but he can’t help smiling. 

“Look, I seem to remember interrupting you and Catherine a time or two,” Danny points out. “I may have pretended I didn’t know what was going on, but—” 

“Hah, ‘pretended’, I just assumed you were cockblocking me out of spite,” Steve teases. 

Danny shrugs. “All it really took to put the idea in my head was you saying you fucked men. I already told you I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you before you left.” 

“Hang on a moment now,” Steve says, straightening up to his full height, affronted. “you did not!” 

“Yes, I absolutely did,” Danny tells him, “I said I always thought it would end with you and me together on the beach.” 

“What? How the hell was I supposed to get ‘I wanna spend my life with you’ from that?” Steve cries. 

“You’re supposed to read between the lines, moron. Me giving you my liver? Fighting tooth and nail to keep Grace here? Tracking you down multiple times in hostile foreign nations? Moving into your house? Read between the lines.” 

“Oh, I see, so I was supposed to read between the lines and also inform you of your so obvious sexual interest in me that you didn’t even know about?” 

“What’s that they say? SEALS get the job done?” Danny says with a laugh, and then they’re kissing, and Steve can’t help but get his hands on Danny’s shirt, undoing buttons, onions bedamned. 

“Extreme ironing?” Steve says aloud, struck by the thought so suddenly he has to ask. “Is that what it sounds like?” 

Danny makes a noise of disgust. “As if I would make something like that up.”

“That’s a—a thing?” 

“You should ask Rachel about it. It’s a thing in the UK. People actually climb mountains and iron shit.” 

“That’s—that is—” Steve can’t even find the right words for how hilariously weird and bad that is. 

“Did I break your brain a little bit?” 

“Well now I kinda want to do it.” 

Danny groans.

Danny

Danny is still getting used to looking at Steve. Really looking. It used to be that he wouldn’t allow himself to really take him in, unless Steve was hurting, in which case Danny was very much not interested in doing inappropriate things to him or with him. Often he’d had to do something to distract himself, like with Steve sitting shirtless in that doctor’s office, and Danny seizing upon the otoscope so that he wouldn’t just stare at Steve’s chest. Or his throat. Or the fading lines of his tattoos on his biceps. And even after they initially got together his eye did tend to skip over Steve’s cock. Too conditioned from years of locker rooms, and porn, trying not to enjoy something he felt he shouldn’t enjoy. But he looks now, practically forgetting the other half of his face still needs shaving as he watches Steve shower on the other side of the glass screen, seemingly unaware of his perusal. Danny’s glad he’d gone with unfrosted glass for the step-in shower. On hot days after coming in from the ocean, Steve showers in water closer to cold than hot, so it doesn’t even fog up.

“Wanna join me?” Steve asks, eyes closed, as he rinses shampoo out of his hair. Not so unaware then. 

“I’m gonna be late,” Danny says regretfully. 

Steve hums, and takes himself in hand, stroking leisurely, and god, Steve never does play fair. But he’s got a meeting with the Governor, and he doesn’t have Steve’s “aw, shucks, ma’am” routine or his “I will brook no disobedience” SEAL officer voice. All he’s got is no nonsense, plain speaking Jersey cop, and surprisingly enough, politicians in Hawaii don’t always respond to that super well. 

Danny shaves the last patch of his chin and then towels off and hightails it out of there before he caves and makes a bad situation worse. 

Later he’ll regret not getting in that shower, being late and suffering the governor’s wrath. He’ll regret not giving Steve a proper goodbye, but most of all he’ll regret not being there to tell Steve ‘none of this is your fault.’

Steve

He knows something’s wrong as soon as Lou pulls up. It’s late afternoon, Danny’s not due back for another hour or so, and Steve’s out in the yard, watering some of the new young trees Danny put in. And then Lou screeches to a halt at the end of his driveway, emerging from the car with a bleak look on his face. For one horrifying moment he thinks Lou is about to tell him Danny is dead and the bottom just seems to drop out of the world, he can barely hear what Lou’s saying, hose dropped to the ground, spraying water over both their legs.

“—McGarett, are you listening to me?” Lou demands, reaching out to shake him. “The governor is refusing to give us the resources to find him, there’s a big agricultural summit happening with a lot of foreign dignitaries, says she needs everybody to focus on that. We tried getting the FBI involved but—” 

“He’s not dead?” Steve says faintly. 

“No, he’s not dead,” Lou says, shaking him a second time. “We have no reason to think he’s dead.” 

“Oh god,” Steve breathes, sinking into a squat on the grass, head in hands. 

Lou settles down to sit beside him, ignoring the wet grass as surely as Steve is. “He went to see a CI right before lunch, never came back with the lunch order he was supposed to pick up, and his car was found in the garage of the Halekulani. Cell is dead, last known ping to a cell tower was in the same area.” 

“Was he set up?” Steve asks, sliding into LCDR Steve McGarrett like he’d never walked away from it. “Who was the CI?” 

“To answer your first question: current thinking is yes,” Lou tells him. “As to the second, no idea, unfortunately. It’s not any of the ones he has registered with HPD, but Tani thinks it was someone who only just demanded a meet, and Danny was going out there to vet them.” 

“What are you working on right now?” Steve asks. 

“Two cases. Big RICO operation, and another drug case,” Lou tells him. “As far as we can tell, it’s not related to either.” 

“You have the footage from the hotel?” 

“That’s the stalling point. A lot of diplomats and their attaches are staying at the hotel,” Lou says. “They’re saying they can’t hand it over without revealing ‘sensitive information related to global security.’” Lou says, saying the last part with all the disdain he’s capable of. “Ellie’s got it before a judge to compel them to turn it over, but it’s Friday, and god knows when they’ll have a ruling.”

“Fuck,” Steve says and breathes out, settles his shoulders. “Okay, I got this.” 

Lou claps him on the shoulder. “I know you do, brother.”

☀

Steve has to wipe dust off his sidearm when he gets it out of the safe. The rest of his gear is in the storage cage at the palace. He never even bothered to collect it. When he’d left he hadn’t yet realized he was done with all this, and then when he returned to Honolulu, a part of him was terrified to think too hard about what he was about to give up. He’d spent nearly half his life with this very same mk25 readily at hand. He’d replaced the spring, the barrel, and the slide stop what felt like countless times, but it was the same gun that saw him through BUD/S all the way to his very last day as an officer of the law, and now here he is, gun callouses nearly gone, spending precious time cleaning and lubricating the frame because he’d left it neglected for so long.

Steve doesn’t really know what it feels like to shake the rust off, because there’s never been a time in his life that he had to. Before he transferred to the reserves, he’d known it was coming. Being a SEAL was a young man’s game, and he was on the other side of 30. He’d thought about joining a green team, because he’s always enjoyed pitting himself up against impossible obstacles, but once his father was killed the entire outlook of his future changed in a heartbeat. He’d never looked back. 

He’s never told Danny, or any of the others, but it was an uphill battle to transition to the reserves, one he’d had to fight for months. He wasn’t that far into his second tour as a SEAL officer and the Navy had sunk over 10 million dollars into training and deploying him, of course they weren’t going to let him go easily. But he’d worked that first case with Danny and then planted himself like a tree and never looked back. He’d never made such an impulsive decision in his entire life. He doesn’t regret it. 

Up until now, he hasn’t regretted walking away from it all either. The life he and Danny were making seemed so promising. Now he can only hope the whole thing hasn’t gone up in smoke, Danny kidnapped or killed because Steve wasn’t there for him.

☀

They get the news that a man matching Danny’s description was spotted with two men in suits, alive, at a private airport, seemingly intoxicated, which made him stand out to the witness. The security cameras at the airfield confirm it. Steve’s glad for the confirmation that Danny’s alive, but he’s also looking at the blurry proof that he’s off island. They’ve got no clue who has him or why, and that terrifies Steve.

The footage wasn’t good enough to make out the men accompanying him, although Adam insists they have to be these two guys Danny apparently clocked at the beach the other day. The hotel is still stonewalling them though, and they haven’t been able to obtain a list of all the security personnel involved in the summit. Steve’s made plenty of friends in the intelligence community, and there are enough people left at the state department that owe him favors. He could call on them to cut through the red tape. That or, between him, Lincoln, and Quinn they have a wealth of contacts who would know how to crack it. Catherine could get somebody on it, or possibly even hack into the hotel’s CCTV herself. Jerry would do it in a heartbeat. 

All of that takes time, which god knows they don’t have. So Steve brute forces it. He breaks into the hotel’s security suite during a shift change and copies the video files and their entire booking registration onto a drive. 

When he walks back into HQ, Jerry’s already there, standing over the tech table, the contents of Danny’s laptop up on the screen. 

“All hands on deck,” he says, nodding to Tani and Junior bent over a monitor, tracking Danny’s car GPS back over a week. 

Steve tosses him the drive. “Get what you can off of that?” he asks. 

Jerry nods. 

Steve fucking wishes they hadn’t decided to outlaw shoptalk at the house. Danny would’ve kept him updated. He would’ve—he would’ve already known about whatever fucking CI was about to ambush him. Just the beginning of a teetering pile of regrets. How could he not see this coming? How many times is it going to take him to learn? 

His eyes snag on the email Jerry’s got up on the big screen and his heart breaks. It’s an exchange with the head of the sociology department at U of H to teach econ and criminology. The guy is practically begging. Danny hadn’t said much about his plans after leaving 5-0, but a quick scan of the email shows that he might’ve been considering it. How could he not know that? And fuck. If only. If only. If only. If only he’d made Danny late this morning. If only he’d insisted Danny resign when he left. If only he’d never left at all. 

“Don’t do that to yourself, boss,” a surprise voice comes from over his shoulder. 

Steve turns to find Kono standing there, a duffle thrown over her shoulder, her eyes understanding and kind, like she knows exactly the dark turn his thoughts have taken. Steve breathes in. He hasn’t seen her in so long, and this is the absolute worst time for a reunion. But when she drops her bag to hug him, breathing in the familiar coconut smell of her hair, he has to fight the urge to cry like a little boy. It might be a terrible way to catch up with a friend you haven’t seen in too long, but there’s nobody else he’d rather have here with him for this disaster. 

After a protracted pause, he pats her on the back and they step apart. When Kono wipes at her eyes, Steve realizes she _is_ crying. “Chin’s on his way,” she says through a sniffle. “And I’ve lived through this before. Danny’ll be alright.” 

Steve doesn’t miss the way that Adam, sitting at a desk behind her, flinches. He doesn’t look up from whatever information he’s looking at, but he’s gone pale as a sheet, white knuckling the pen he’s holding. Steve takes an educated guess that Adam is just as surprised to see her as Steve is. 

Junior and Tani watch them both with unalloyed curiosity, and Lincoln and Quinn are suddenly pretending to be very busy. Steve clears his throat. 

“For those of you that don’t know, this is SA Kono Kalakaua, formerly of 5-0.” He quickly points out Tani, Junior, Quinn, and Lincoln, and then turns back to her. “How’d you get here so fast?” 

“My father had a heart attack, so I was already heading back. Hadn’t had time to let anybody know, but it appears that Jerry,” she pauses to give him a pointed look, “keeps tabs on all of us. He called me an hour ago.” 

Jerry doesn’t even look anywhere close to repentant. “If I had been more vigilant, maybe we’d know where Danny is right now.” 

“Kono, your father,” Steve tries to protest. 

Kono shakes her head. “He’s resting at the moment, and I saw him for a little bit before he fell asleep. They’re gonna release him in the morning with a diet plan and a shiny new pacemaker, but he’ll be alright.” She shrugs. “Right now? This is more important.” 

“It feels kinda lucky,” Jerry says. “You and Chin called back to the island right when we need you.” 

“Easy,” Kono says, “or I’ll think you were involved somehow.” 

Jerry ignores the accusation and says, “I got something.”

☀

Danny

Greer was supposed to be dead, shot through the back by Catherine. In the beginning when he sees her face swimming before his eyes, drugged up as he is, he assumes he’s just hallucinating. It was already a very bad day, what with the drugging and none-too-gentle kidnapping by armed Russians. But she’s still there, in her fancy Louboutins and pantsuit, when he hits the comedown through what feels like the worst hangover of his life. She informs him he’s been dragged off to Vladi-fucking-vostok of all places, and he didn’t have high expectations for anything that might come out of her mouth, but it makes his stomach sink like lead. All Danny knows is that if a rogue element of the Russian FSB owed him a favor or two, he would not call it in on a former fuck buddy. Especially not if he was on the run from the law. God, Steve knows how to pick ‘em.

“Why?” he asks her, barely able to sit up on the cot they’ve got him on, head pounding. 

“I told Rollins, you know, I warned her,” she says. “She didn’t listen either, and now here we are.” 

“What?” Danny’s thoughts are sluggish. He’s aware of the process of thinking, but somehow failing to come up with any results. 

“He’ll never stay with you. He can’t. He’s incapable of it.” 

“This seems like a lot of effort to go to to give me relationship advice,” he finally manages. 

“Oh no,” she says with a laugh. “That’s not what this is about.” 

“What’s it about?” 

“Leveling the playing field.” She says. “There are any number of parties interested in the information in McGarrett’s head, and they’re all willing to pay. Just have to wait for the boy of the hour to arrive.” 

“Oh, goodie,” Danny says. She tosses him a jaunty wave and then leaves, shutting the door behind her with a resounding thud.

☀

Once the drugs finally wear off, Danny finds himself restless and edgy. They stripped him of his tie and dress shirt, and removed his belt and his shoes, like he might try to Rapunzel out of here with the laces, but there aren’t any windows in the cell. Maybe they expected him to hang himself. Or maybe Greer thinks Danny has Steve’s skill at improvising weapons out of thin air. If only. He’s paced every inch of the floor, he’s searched the little cot for anything that can be broken off and turned into a weapon (nada), he’s even tried bashing at the walls with the chair they left him, but all that does is wreck the chair. He returns to pacing.

Greer walks in a short time later with a container of yogurt, an orange, and some water, and moves to sit down, only to find the mangled chair. She arches a brow at him, before handing over the water. 

“You know, you really don’t know the things he’s done,” she says with a deep sigh, like his show of disobedience is irksome. 

“Cool story,” he rasps out after swallowing down nearly half the bottle. “Any chance for some more of this?”

Greer ignores him. “Women and kids? That’s your thing right? They died because of him. Because of direct things he did.” 

“Are you trying to turn me against him?” he asks incredulously. She can’t possibly be trying to do this right now. He’s starting to wonder if these supposed buyers of hers actually exist. If Danny had to get dragged to Siberia or wherever the fuck he is, it had better not just be because this lady is obsessed with Steve leaving her. Danny thinks Steve is pretty great, obviously, but is he _that_ wonderful? Danny is disgruntled to realize that yes, Steve probably is that wonderful. How deeply annoying to have such a wonderful spouse. 

Spouse? Spouse. Huh, that sounds surprisingly appropriate. 

“Just think you should know the monster you’ve invited into your home.” 

“I invited me in,” Danny says idly. “Can I have the food, or is the object of the game to taunt me with it?”

“Pardon?” She blinks at him, but she does toss the yogurt and orange at him.

“Me, I invited myself in. To his house,” Danny explains, peeling the orange. He’s not going to try to eat the yogurt in front of her without a spoon. He’s gotta maintain some dignity here. 

“It’s a metaphor,” she says like he’s a total idiot. 

Danny snorts and shakes his head. That tense moment before he pulled the trigger on Reyez at close-range swims up before his eyes. He says, “Sometimes I think I’m more of the monster.” 

Greer laughs like he’s being a ridiculous little boy. “You?” 

“I killed a Colombian drug dealer in cold blood,” Danny tells her, and she looks confused. “I don’t think Steve has ever killed someone simply because he wanted to. He didn’t kill you after all. Not so much of a monster after all.” 

Greer snorts. “I suppose that depends on how you define it. They don’t do negotiations, you know? If your boy was called it meant he was going to lead a thirteen man death machine, and eradicate everything in its path.” 

“You should write poetry,” he tells her because all these metaphors are a lot.

☀

Danny has propped the cot up on it’s side and has started doing chin ups to pass the time when she returns with more water and food. He has no idea how much time has passed without windows, but he estimates several hours. He thinks the ambush at Halekulani was probably three days ago. God, how he wishes he’d had any inkling it was Greer. Not that he could’ve, on account of her being dead. Although with the number of times people from the past have shown up trying to ruin his day, maybe he should start keeping a list of who’s left.

In the meantime, he wonders if this periodic gab sesh with food is all some show that the great and wonderful Greer is being so humane to her prisoners compared to the horrifying Steve McGarrett or something. Which, Danny already got to see what Steve did to the last person he needed information out of. It wasn’t pretty and he hadn’t lost any sleep over it either. She’s ten years too late to get any sort of reaction out of him. 

“Don’t talk at me,” he warns, setting his feet back on the floor. 

As usual, she ignores him. “I really didn’t think it would take him this long to find us. Maybe he doesn’t care about you at all.” 

Danny can’t help a guffaw. The last thing he’s worried about is Steve’s commitment to him. Instead he’s afraid the big lunk will get himself hurt or killed trying to rescue Danny. If it’s taking a while, Danny can only hope that means he’s being careful. Steve thinks several steps ahead to the point where he wants to just smash through walls, rather than walk around them, because he’s already onto the next chapter and doesn’t have _time_ to waste on technicalities. And that’s the last thing Danny wants, especially because he knows how Steve gets when he’s scared for someone he loves. Despite whatever Greer might think, Danny knows him ten times as well as she ever will. He’s spent a lot of time with him, under every situation imaginable. That Greer could think she knew Steve from spending a few months with him in the middle of a warzone that probably didn’t lend itself much to stimulating conversation is honestly insulting. 

“Lady, I don’t know what the fuck you want from me, but if it’s to tell you ‘you’re right, and I hate him,’ and cry on you because I’ve realized that he’s a bad bad man, you’re fucking delusional.” 

Greer raises a brow at him, but he continues, “Steve is the single most important thing to me after my kids, and I get how people get obsessed with him, but do not presume that I don’t know Steve as well as any person can know someone.” 

Danny’s not completely cold, but he knows who Steve is, and he also knows on some level that it’s the US Government that has to answer for what they made Steve into. 

“Were you a saint over there?” Danny asks, working on a hunch. “Because from the way Steve tells it, you made a couple of reckless decisions that cost people their lives.” 

“That’s a lie,” Greer bites out. “If he’d just listened to me, if he’d just trusted the intel was good, everything would’ve been fine!” 

Danny’s not about to divulge that Steve had said fuck all about Greer. “It’s why he ended it with you, isn’t it? He thought you were a loose cannon,” he taunts, watching her go red-faced with rage. 

And then the ceiling shakes. 

They both stumble, and then the door bursts open and Greer whirls around, drawing her gun on Kono, kitted out in a full tactical outfit, a rifle pointed right back at Greer. 

“Kono?” Danny says in surprise. 

“Good to see you in one piece, Danny,” she grins. 

The sounds of rapid gunfire filter down the hall, and the building shakes again like somebody’s setting off mortars. Somebody, hah. It’s most definitely Steve. 

“Looks like we’re at an impasse—” Greer starts, gun still raised, but Danny’s had enough of her sermonizing, and picks up a leg of the mangled chair and swings it as hard as he can into her head. She drops like a bag of potatoes. 

“Didn’t like her much, brah?” Kono asks with a surprised laugh. She relaxes her grip on the rifle and nudges Greer’s prone body with the toe of one boot while Danny picks up Greer’s dropped revolver and checks the chamber. 

“Old ex of Steve’s,” Danny explains. “Kept trying to tell me some horrible secret about Steve’s past.” 

“What, that he likes Pepsi instead of Coke?” Kono asks with a snort. She touches her earpiece and says, “I’ve found him. He’s unharmed.” To Danny, she asks, “What do you think? Just leave her here?” 

“Seems fair,” Danny says, stepping over her body. They let the door slam behind them. “Good to see you too, by the way. How’d you get in?” 

Kono holds up an ID card and points at another prone body lying sprawled on the floor. “We had no idea where you were being held, so Chin and I have been searching the halls while the others provided a distraction.” 

Danny shakes his head fondly. “Do you know she’d just come in to tell me Steve was taking too long to find me?” 

Kono laughs. “We all figured it was really a trap for Steve, but you know the big man. Said he didn’t care. Took all of Chin and Lou’s combined powers to talk him into a more sensible plan than just running in, guns ablaze. Where are your shoes by the way?” 

“Zero clue, god, they took my wallet, gun, and badge,” Danny says. “And the watch Steve gave me. It’s actually nice. For such a cheapskate, he’s good at giving gifts.” 

At least one of these issues he can solve right now. The heavy knocked out cold on the floor has feet that seem close enough to Danny’s size, so he sets about stripping him of his boots and jamming his own feet into them. 

“And on that note, I hear congratulations are in order,” Kono says as he wrestles with the laces. 

Danny looks up. “Mmm, must’ve lost my mind,” he says, but then pauses. 

“You’re about to tell me you want to get your stuff back,” Kono says, looking amused. 

Danny shrugs, finishing off a knot. “More the wallet, it’ll be hell to have to replace my driver’s license and credit cards after all this bullshit.” 

Kono laughs at him. “Sure, it’s about the wallet.”

Danny flicks her off and she laughs. 

When he climbs back up on his feet, Kono has gone silent, listening to something on the ear piece. 

“Copy,” she says after a long moment, and then to Danny, looking conflicted, she says, “I’d go with you to find your stuff, but Adam is pinned down on the west corridor.” Her face is pensive, and maybe a little guilty. Danny wants to smile. These two crazy kids. 

“Go,” Danny tells her. “I’m sure I can find my way.” 

“When you find what you need, the rendezvous point is down that stairwell,” she points at a door at the end of the hall, “go down two floors and then hook a left. There’s an emergency exit to the outside. Tani’s waiting with the getaway van there.” 

He nods. “Got it.” 

“You’ll be alright?” she asks.

“Scouts honor. Stay safe,” he tells her. 

Kono breathes in deep and then nods before charging off in the opposite direction.

☀

He finds his stuff in what passes for a break room in weird Russian bunkers. There are two guys sitting at a table playing cards, and Danny shoots them both unceremoniously as he walks in. Sitting next to an electric kettle and a water cooler, right there on the counter, there’s a clear plastic bag with his gun, badge, wallet, and the watch. He thought for sure somebody would’ve claimed the watch and gun for spoils or something, and he’d have to shoot a few more people to get them back. No evidence of his shirt or shoes though, so the oversized boots he stole will have to do.

Everything’s still there in his wallet, from his pictures of Grace and Charlie to his coffee loyalty card. The watch has a large scratch on the face, but is otherwise fine. It’s a Breguet flyback that Danny had been lusting after, but obviously was not about to drop nearly 10K on. Three years ago Steve had done some work for the Swiss Watch Group on their experimental diving watches, and managed to get his hands on the Breguet as swag. It was given to him for Christmas “from” Grace and Charlie, while Steve had pretended he didn’t have a present for him, even though it was more than obvious where it came from, unless Steve expected him to believe his kids were knocking over convenience stores all over the island to drum up the cash.

Danny suspects they gave him the watch in lieu of payment, but Steve has never divulged. Danny can’t help a smile now. He straps it on his wrist, and then shoves the wallet and badge in his pants pockets, before re-chambering the clip on his service weapon. He tucks the dinky revolver into the back of his pants and sets off toward the stairwell Kono indicated.

Steve

Steve doesn’t know what they’ve been feeding FSB agents, but he suspects human growth hormone is involved. Nobody should be able to absorb the level of pain Steve’s delivered to these guys, and still be walking, but they just keep coming. He’s finally whittled it down to two, but he’s flagging now, and completely out of ammunition.

He tosses his M4 aside and pulls out his K Bar. It goes against everything that Steve believes in to consider he might not make it out, but at least he knows Danny’s okay, and he can readily imagine how pissed Danny’s going to be if he gets himself killed here. If he has to knife fight against two giants to survive and avoid that stinging ‘I told you so’ that he will most definitely manage to hear beyond the grave, he can fucking well do it. 

Two bangs and the giants drop unceremoniously at his feet. 

He looks up and there’s Danny, in a weaver stance, gun still smoking. Steve feels a profound sense of relief to see him. He’s all golden in that grimy undershirt, like an avenging John McClane. God he’s fucking hot. 

“Perfect timing,” Steve tells him with a grin, wiping off his brow. 

“Fuck you,” Danny spits, and then he’s on Steve, kissing the breath out of him, and all Steve can do is hold on tight and thank all the heavens everything worked out okay. 

“What were you thinking?” he whispers when they come up for air, because that’s the one thing he still can’t figure out. Why didn’t Danny take backup to the Halekulani? 

Danny sighs. “They called me while you were on your run, sent me a livestream of it down a sniper scope. Told me you’d be dead in a tenth of a second if I tried to alert anybody or made any detour on the way to the Halekulani. I think Greer knew there was no way they’d ever be able to take you alive, but at the time, I had no idea she was behind all of this.” 

Steve feels stricken. “You should’ve—” 

“If you’re about to tell me that I should’ve let them shoot you, you can fucking forget it,” Danny tells him with a dangerous look in his eye. 

Steve tries again. “But if I’m—” 

“No,” Danny says firmly. 

“Well I’m just saying—” 

“Nuh uh,” Danny interrupts him again, expression fierce as he turns his back on Steve. “Don’t want to hear it.”

Steve takes a deep breath, and lets it go. They’re going to have to have a longer conversation about this later, because whatever Danny thinks, if Danny dies, Steve’s as good as. But that’s a lot to put on a person, so he simply hugs him from behind. “What was that you were saying about loving somebody who takes such incredible risks?”

☀

Danny

They get out of Vladivostok on a surprisingly chi chi Yakuza plane via a drug pipeline they were running into far eastern Russia, thanks to Adam. Steve brought the whole damn team with him (“Like they’d let me leave them behind, Danny!”) so they’re packed in pretty tight then they ended up hitching a ride on a troop transport C-17 heading from Okinawa to Pearl, thanks to Quinn.

Steve insists that the medic on board give him a onceover, looming at her shoulder the whole time like the fact that she’s army meant she couldn’t be trusted. Under different circumstances Danny might find it hilarious. 

He’s aware that creeping anxiety is a frequent side-effect in the aftermath of spent adrenaline, but it’s been several hours since then, and it hasn’t abated in the slightest. He would give absolutely anything to take the edge off, and from the way the medic’s looking at him, heartily amused, as he bounces his left leg and fidgets in place, he’s not being very subtle. He just needs to be doing something constructive, not sitting here wasting time when he’s perfectly fine. 

Steve gets called away when she goes to take his blood pressure. 

“Blood pressure’s high,” she says with a hum, showing him the reading. “Can I assume this is not normal for you?” 

Danny breathes out. “Been a bit stressed recently.” 

“Mmhm,” she says. “Well, other than that you’re all good.”

“Great, can you tell He-Man that?” Danny asks, pointing at Steve. 

“Tell him yourself,” she says, and then she’s plucking something out of her bag and dropping it into his lap. He looks down to see several square foils and those little plastic twist-off tubes of lube they used to give out by the handful in Hell’s Kitchen. Mortified, he goes to tell her he doesn’t need them thank you very much, but she’s already on her feet, striding away. Danny quickly shoves them into his pockets, hoping none of the many troops arrayed around him or any members of 5-0 have noticed. He can’t believe this girl, who is barely older than his daughter he might add, just threw condoms at him and walked away. He gets up to wander the plane in search of a convenient place to get rid of them, because he’s not traveling back to Hawaii with his pockets stuffed full of Magnum XXLs, but they don’t just leave trash cans lying around on C-17s. 

Steve finds him amidst the cargo, where he’s seriously considering stuffing them under a tarp.

“What are you doing?” he asks. 

“You were right not to trust the army,” Danny tells him, showing him the palm full of contraband. “She just suggested you and I bone to bring down my blood pressure.” 

Steve shoots him a long look. “Not actually a bad idea.” 

“Are you fucking serious?”

“It’s not that big of a deal. All of them are used to combat jacks,” Steve answers with an unbothered shrug. Danny assumes he means the soldiers bedded down on the other side of the cargo, not their friends and coworkers. 

Danny says, “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.” 

“Nope,” Steve says, popping the ‘p’ with a grin. “I think you’ve got exactly the right idea.” 

“Steve, you’re not telling me—” 

Steve laughs, correctly intuiting the direction of his thoughts. “I’ve been in uncomfortably close quarters with other men since I was sixteen. Of course I’ve done it.” 

“I—wow,” Danny says. 

“Well, c’mere then,” Steve says, drawing Danny back against his chest. 

“This is a terrible idea, even forgetting all the people 20 feet away, I’m disgusting, I haven’t showered in three days,” he tries to protest, batting feebly at Steve’s hands. 

“Me either,” Steve reveals, and Danny winces, knowing how frantic and crazy he must’ve felt. Danny didn’t exactly have a ball of a time, but he also trusted Steve to do everything in his power to get to him. Steve’s smile and quip when he finally saw him hid the anxiety Danny knew was there. 

He should probably be fighting this more. Or changing the subject to his very real worries that Steve will blame himself for this whole thing and then do something mental like try to leave again once they made it back on the Island. 

“I’m not going to leave again, too selfish for that,” Steve tells him, stroking his hands down Danny’s sides, his chin on Danny’s shoulder. That hits him right where he lives. Steve, one of the most annoyingly selfless people that he knows, is too selfish to give him up. Fucking good then, because if he tries to leave again, Danny might actually have to chain him up in the basement. 

“But,” Steve continues, “I am coming back to 5-0 for as long as you’re there. I can’t take Lou coming up the driveway to tell me you’re missing while I’ve been dicking around doing garden work a second time.” 

“Hah, maybe I won’t hire you back,” Danny says, even as he finally leans back against Steve’s reassuringly sturdy frame. “But, the point is moot, because I have a job offer.” 

“At U of H?” Steve asks, “you’re going to take it?” 

“What? How?” Danny starts and then remembers that Steve dragged literally _everybody_ back to help find him. “Ah, Jerry.” 

“Mmhm,” Steve murmurs, cupping Danny through his pants. 

Danny should really be stopping this. He’s not an exhibitionist, he doesn’t have discovery fantasies, he doesn’t need anybody to think he’s some depraved sexual lunatic, but—

“Shhh,” Steve tells him, and presses a kiss to that spine-melting spot right behind his ear. “Do you know the number of times I’ve wanted to do this to you on the other side of a firefight?” 

Danny shivers, his hands drop weakly to his sides as Steve slowly unzips his trousers. “Well if it’s your fantasy…” he says. 

Steve chuckles, running teasing fingers along the waistband of Danny’s briefs.

“I pretty much wanted to fuck you from the moment I met you,” Steve tells him, fingertips just below the band now, stroking the downy skin just above the base of his cock, “which was pretty surprising.” 

“Hey, who’s groping who, here?” Danny says, wetting his lower lip and pushing back into the touch a little. 

“It was rare for it to hit me like that,” Steve explains, “Wanting somebody that badly. I genuinely didn’t mind being single, or casually dating. It wasn’t a priority.”

“Mmhm,” Danny says, and it comes out unfairly breathy because Steve’s dragging the edge of his thumb over the fabric down along his shaft now. 

“But I met you, and I instantly wanted to make you one,” Steve says, rubbing at the head of his cock as it swells. 

Danny moans. It hadn’t been that instantaneous for him, but only, Danny thinks, because he was fighting it the whole way. He didn’t want there to be good things in Hawaii. He didn’t want a best friend who was better than all the guys who’d stood up for him at his wedding put together. Even now, a decade on, he still has a hard time admitting he owes his happiness to Rachel suing for sole custody and dragging him 5000 miles away. 

“Heyo, Steve,” Chin calls. “You back here?” 

Danny curses, startled and not a little chagrined. There were reasons he’d thought this was a bad idea. Steve is slow to pull his hand out of his pants though, giving him one last proprietary squeeze that makes Danny gasp. 

Chin comes around the corner while Danny is still futzing with his now very inopportune erection and the fly on his trousers. 

Steve smoothly steps in front of him, hands innocently in his pockets. “What’s up?” 

Chin doesn’t answer right away, looking back and forth between them both, too busy fighting a laugh. “Couldn’t wait?” he asks. 

Steve shrugs. “Well technically the medic said that—” 

Danny elbows him. “Excuse me. She didn’t ‘say’ anything.” 

Steve rolls his eyes. “Okay, she didn’t say it, she just handed you a bunch of lube. If anything that speaks louder than saying it.” 

“Guys,” Chin says, bringing their attention back to him. He nods at Steve. “Apparently there’s a phone call for you from the Pentagon.”

“Alright, lemme handle that,” Steve sighs, jogging off. Danny has the kneejerk parental reflex to say “don’t run” like he’s Charlie, sprinting down the aisles, about to take out some unsuspecting passenger. He knows it’s illogical, because it’s a giant aircraft, but it also feels like a bad idea. What if Steve’s footfalls drop the plane out of the sky? 

Danny shakes his head. God, he’s got to learn to stop doing this to himself. “This is not a frequent occurrence,” he insists, turning back to Chin. 

Chin roars with laughter. “Oh please, like the fighting isn’t foreplay for you guys.” 

“For fuck’s sake,” Danny says, with a laugh of his own. He sits down on a cargo palette, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Did _everybody_ know?” 

Chin sits down beside him, mirroring his pose. “No, hardly. What kind of friends would we be if we let you wander around pining for each other without doing anything about it?” 

Danny nods. “Everybody acts like it’s so obvious, but it wasn’t to me.” 

“Steve, maybe, was obvious,” Chin amends. “But that too was complicated. If we’d known that either of you…” he pauses. “Sorry, how do you define?”

“Pardon?” 

“LGBTQIA,” Chin clarifies. 

“Oh.” Danny pauses, he’s never actually had a thought about it. They were both so used to people making inferences, it never seemed like it required further thought or explanation than ‘Steve is my partner. Yes, in all senses of the word.’

“I dunno, B I guess?” he says. 

“Right, if we’d known you were bi, it would’ve been different, but then I suspect if everybody knew that ahead of time, you never would’ve needed help,” Chin says. “I can’t lie, of course the thought crossed my mind, but I didn’t want to be normative about these things, and I thought your friendship really was quite beautiful.” 

Danny laughs. “When he’s not trying to get me killed, in any event.” 

“Does it bother you?” Chin asks earnestly. 

Danny stops to think about it, before sharing, “Lost time, I guess. If it was so blindingly obvious, I regret that it took us so long to figure that out.” 

“Things unfold in the only way they can,” Chin replies. “That said, I’m curious, what changed?” 

“Oy vey.” Danny blows out a breath. “Truly in the randomest way possible? It scares me a little, just how random.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I was—” Danny wants to say that he was worried about Steve, but that’s not true. Steve had been doing so well at that point, but Danny wasn’t with him, and it ached like a sore tooth he couldn’t stop worrying at. “I missed him when he was down in Pasadena, and I called Mary, just to see how he was doing.” 

Chin nods for him to continue. 

“Mary accidentally outed him.” 

Chin whistles in commiseration. “Oh boy. How?” 

“That’s the thing. Complete slip of the tongue. A waiter hit on Steve and gave him his number. I assumed it was a woman, and she corrected me like, ‘of course you would know Steve is into men.’” Danny spreads his hands with a sardonic chuckle. “I think about that waiter a lot. If he hadn’t hit on Steve, I never would’ve known. That’s what kills me. Steve would’ve gone to his grave with it I think.” 

“But he did,” Chin says gently. “So that was the light bulb moment for you?” 

“Not exactly.” Danny winces with a self-deprecating chuckle. 

Chin nudges him, cajoling. “Well now you’ve gotta tell me.” 

Danny groans, and then looks around, hoping nobody else is around to overhear, he says, “Keep in mind I’m only telling you this.” 

“Got it.” 

“He called me,” Danny says. “And without really thinking about it, I said I’d been, well, that I’d been thinking about him.” 

“Oh I see,” Chin says meaningfully, brows waggling. “Go on.” 

If it was anybody but Chin, he’d be clamming up so fast right now, but Chin was also the least judgmental person on the planet and Danny hasn’t exactly had many people to talk to about this. 

“We wound up having phone sex.” Danny scrubs a hand across his face, embarrassed. 

Chin looks impressed. “That’s quite a jump, brah.” 

“Yeah well, longtime coming and all that, I guess,” Danny says, before hastily adding. “No pun intended.” 

“Must’ve been some good phone sex,” Chin says. 

“It got him to come home,” Danny says. He’s pretty proud of himself for that. “But it’s not exactly dinner table conversation.” 

“Yeah, I can see why you might not be shouting that from the rooftops,” Chin answers. 

Steve chooses that moment to reappear. “Well, that’s another country I’m never allowed to set foot in,” he says as he settles down on the palette next to Danny, arm going automatically around his waist. 

“Russia?” Danny asks, not hiding the way he moves into the touch, glad that Chin doesn’t make a point of it. Up until now, the only person who could watch them being physically affectionate without hooting and hollering was Adam. 

“Let’s just say if I hadn’t already resigned, I would no longer have a job,” Steve says, but he’s smiling like he doesn’t mind. “I’m told the president did threaten to have my offer from FEMA rescinded, but he kept saying the FAA, so I think I’m safe. ” 

“Just wait until he finds out you did it to rescue your male lover,” Danny jokes. 

“Oh, I don’t know if I could sink any further down his shit list,” Steve replies, voice dry. “He hates my service record. I’m that “Obama SEAL” and apparently we are colluding, a word he now knows very well, along with the rest of the Island in some Anti-Russia plot. Putin is very unhappy.” 

Danny suspects Steve is more bothered by it than he’s letting on, but he’s learned not to push. “If Putin is unhappy I guess I can’t hire you back to 5-0. Too bad, so sad.” 

Steve smiles at Danny for lightening the mood. “In other news, Kono and Adam are looking pretty cozy, huh?” 

Chin grins.

Steve

Steve doesn’t love it, but when they get back in the early evening, Danny goes alone to see Charlie and assure him he’s alright. Steve’s never been the ‘other woman’ in his entire life, but he gets the impression that Rachel feels that way about him. He’s not sure why or how. It had taken them over a year to get together after that failed family trip they’d gone on, and Steve had never done anything to stand in their way. But Danny had explained that the two things weren’t unrelated, which Steve knows shouldn’t make him feel any sense of triumph, but he does a little. He can’t help it.

“God, the entire time we were there, figuring out what activities to do and going to dinner, all I noticed was how little we had to say to each other,” Danny had told him one evening, sitting on the beach as the sun went down. “It was all reminiscing. We didn’t have anything in common anymore.” 

“You fell for her the first time, even if you had nothing in common,” Steve had said, because he could never stop offering Danny the out, as much as it hurt. 

Danny had laughed. “It’s different when you’re 23. Our relationship was very physical. That’s why it started falling apart when I made detective. The only thing holding us together was the bedroom, and when that was gone...” 

On the one hand, it was reassuring. He and Danny would never run out of things to talk about—or bicker over, he supposed. On the other, he didn’t exactly need to know about Danny and Rachel’s great sex. It had been good enough that they’d rekindled it twice, and well, maybe it makes him vain or arrogant, but he’s always been given to understand he’s good in bed, and he would very much appreciate it if he was the best sex of Danny’s life. Especially since the reverse is 100% true. 

Steve eventually decides to take a shower to distract himself. He knows about the link between lack of sleep and intrusive thoughts. He’s not _actually_ threatened by her and he knows that. He’s just always liked Rachel, and it bothers him that she might think he took something from her, not to mention the way that it makes it awkward when Charlie comes over. It’s not worth dwelling on, though. She’s either going to come around or she’s not. Steve tries to remind himself to focus on the things he can control and exclude the rest. 

A shower he can manage. He smells rank and he feels worse. 

When he gets upstairs to the renovated bathroom, he pauses, staring at the extravagant tub Danny had put in. Steve doesn’t take baths. It seems a little ridiculous and wasteful when you could just jump into the ocean across the yard, but Steve’s dead on his feet, and sore to boot. Maybe just this once.

☀

“Hey, babe,” a gentle shake to his shoulder wakes him up. He jerks, sloshing water everywhere, opening his eyes to see Danny kneeling beside the tub, looking fond.

“Can’t believe I fell asleep,” he mumbles, straightening in the now chilly bathwater. It takes him a moment to gather the coordination to heave himself up out of the tub. 

“You must’ve needed it,” Danny says fondly. He looks clean himself, hair freshly washed, wearing some sweats. 

“You shower at Rachel’s?” Steve asks, voice hoarse from sleep. 

Danny makes a huffing noise. “Not sure she would’ve let me in the house if I didn’t.” 

“Is she ever going to get over being mad at me?” Steve asks, accepting the towel Danny hands him as he gingerly navigates himself out of the tub. 

Danny’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Mad at you? She’s not mad at you. If anything she’s mad at me,” he explains. “When I told her about us, she accused me of stringing you along for the last ten years and then just deciding one day ‘oh well, why not?’” 

Steve chuckles. “See? I did say everybody could tell but you.” 

Danny rolls his eyes. 

Steve towels off his face and then carefully hangs it over the towel bar, trying to model good behavior. Danny does not need to leave towels all over the floor where they won’t dry properly. 

Danny makes a noise behind him and Steve turns around, surprised. 

“I’m gonna need you to put some clothes on for this very serious discussion,” Danny says, running his teeth over his bottom lip in a way that Steve has always found captivating. 

Steve quirks a brow. He considers refusing, because when has he ever turned down an advantage? But after soaking in cold water for who knows how long, clothes seem like an excellent idea, and though the spirit may be willing, he’s far too tired to get anything started right now. 

Leaving wet footprints on the hardwood that Danny will surely bitch about later, he obligingly troops into the bedroom to pull on some underwear and pajama pants, Danny following half a step behind. 

“Do you want to eat, or head straight to bed?” Danny asks, interrupting himself with a jaw cracking yawn that makes it clear what he’d prefer. 

“Better to eat something, you’ll rest better,” Steve says. 

Danny groans. 

“Alright, alright, get in bed, I’ll fix you something and bring it to you here, okay?” Steve tells him. Danny nods absently, yawning again. Steve pauses to watch him strip out of the sweats, and then gives himself a firm shake. Not right now. There will be time for that later. All the time in the world.

☀

Danny

_His back is pressed to the cold tile, water pouring down all around them. Steve’s got his thigh hooked over his forearm, spreading him open for every piercing shove of his cock as he fucks him up against the shower wall. Danny can’t seem to get enough air into his lungs, it feels that good._

_The thing of it is that Danny knows what it’s like to fuck someone new through this, he knows that it’s gonna be a bit of a tight fit, that they’ll still manage to have fun, but it’ll be a while before they can do it anything other than incredibly carefully; for some reason, Danny opened right up to Steve’s cock. He’s pliable and relaxed, and maybe so into the idea that orgasm is gonna happen fast. Steve always gives him what he needs._

Danny jerks awake to darkness, hard and hot and sweating. When he looks over his shoulder, he finds Steve’s already awake, lit up by the light of the moon coming in through the window. 

“Did you sleep at all?” he asks hoarsely, rolling over onto his back. The ache in his dick is insistent and he reaches down, palming it almost absently. 

“Not after that performance,” Steve murmurs, amused. His hair is rumpled, and there are bruises on his chest and arms from fighting their way out of the compound in Russia. He looks like a debauched warrior straight out of those romances Danny’s ex mother-in-law wrote. 

“That obvious?” Danny mumbles. 

“Let’s just say I had a very hard time keeping my hands off you,” Steve says, “but it seemed kind of creepy to grab at you in your sleep.”

Danny stretches, this time deliberately, letting the covers slip downard. “Well, for the record you may.”

“May what?” Steve asks. 

“Touch me when I’m sleeping,” Danny says, yawning. “It’s kinda hot.” 

“Noted,” Steve says. “What were you dreaming about this time?” 

This time Danny flushes. “You were fucking me.” 

“Oh, was I?” Steve asks, looking supremely interested. 

“Mm,” Danny says, “when those goons got me I kept thinking about how I wished I’d gotten into the shower with you that morning.” 

“In the shower, huh,” Steve says. 

“It was dream sex though,” Danny tells him, “no way you could bang me up a wall like that. Sorry, stud.” 

“Oh,” Steve says, leaning in close to nip at Danny’s ear. “I think you’re underestimating me.” 

“Please,” Danny scoffs, “you’d break something, probably me, knowing your track record.” 

“I’ll just have to prove you wrong,” Steve promises, “but for now, get onto your side like you were.” 

“Would it kill you to ask?” Danny bitches. He rolls over with a grumble, back to Steve’s front. 

“It just might,” Steve says, sliding in close. He drags Danny’s underwear down over his asscheeks, exposing them. 

Danny jerks in surprise. He’s not repelled by the idea of Steve fucking him, but it also seems quite abrupt. “Are you gonna—”

“No, don’t have the patience for that,” Steve interrupts, “Gonna finish what we started on the airplane.” 

Danny groans as Steve closes his fist around Danny’s cock, giving him a firm squeeze. 

“Spread your legs a little,” Steve tells him. 

Danny lifts his top leg against the resistance of the waistband of his briefs, and then Steve is reaching between them, fitting his cock in the gap. Steve’s precome smears across his sensitive inner thighs as Steve pushes forward, making Danny shiver. He preses his thighs together, tight, and Steve curses. 

“Huh, so that’s what this feels like,” Danny mumbles. He arches involuntarily when Steve’s capable hand closes around his shaft, dragging down it in the same instance that he thrusts forward, hitting the back of Danny’s balls. 

“Okay?” Steve asks, pressing a kiss to Danny’s throat. 

“Fuck, more than okay,” Danny says. It’s overwhelming in the way that Steve always is. The way he can’t get enough of. When Steve does quick and dirty, it’s still masterful, getting Danny right to the brink. Danny holds himself firm, thighs locked, making Steve work for it. 

“God, Danny,” Steve breathes into his nape, “I think you were made for me.” 

“Maybe you were made for me,” Danny groans when Steve speeds the motion of his hand right before Danny can ask for it. “How do you always know?” 

Steve doesn’t answer, but his cock catches on Danny’s rim on the next pass, a sure sign that he’s close. Danny has the insane thought that he should tell Steve to just do it, stuff it inside him, even though the other experienced and rational side of him knows that’s a very bad idea. He thinks about what it felt like in that dream, caged by Steve’s body, speared on his cock, and thinks if it’s even half as good as that, he’s a goner for sure. 

“You’re gonna ruin me for anybody else,” Danny says, trembling now. 

“That’s the idea,” Steve tells him, driving against him even harder, sweat and pre-come smoothing the way. 

It’s too much. Danny comes with a muttered curse, practically erupting in Steve’s grip, his whole frame wracked with shudders. 

“Love the way you get that last little bit bigger before you come,” Steve tells him, still working his shaft. “Feels so good when you’re pounding me open.” 

Another pulse of come jets out, and now Steve’s hand is slick with Danny’s release. Almost involuntarily, Danny clenches his thighs even tighter around him. Steve tenses behind him, shoving in with bone-jarring force one last time, before painting Danny’s balls with come. 

It takes a moment to get his scrambled thoughts back into order. Steve’s holding onto him like he’s the only anchor to the bed, and Danny gets it because that was a fuck of a lot. Even the engines of a C-17 probably wouldn’t be able to cover the level of noise they just made. 

Finally, with his breaths slowing in his chest, and the deep thudding of his heart evening out into its regular rhythm, Danny wonders, “Is that what you had in mind on the airplane?” 

Steve starts laughing against the back of his neck. After a moment, he admits, “I hadn’t actually thought that far ahead.” 

“Why does that not surprise me?” Danny asks dryly. 

Steve shoves away from him and Danny tries to get his limbs to move so he can get out of bed and clean himself up. 

“Don’t get up,” Steve tells him, padding across the floor, into the bathroom. Danny relaxes into the mattress. Listening to Steve rummage around in the bathroom is the last thing he remembers before drifting off.

☀

Danny

The next morning, just as the sun’s starting to rise, Steve goes out for his usual morning swim. He’s surprised to find Kono sitting at the edge of the sand, her arms around her legs, watching the surf.

Steve settles down beside her. “What brings you here bright and early this morning?” 

“I started seeing somebody back in Nevada,” Kono tells him. “And Adam’s got a girlfriend, a serious one, it seems.” 

Steve nods. “That’s true.” 

“You know we’re only legally separated?” she asks. 

“I did not know that,” Steve says. 

Kono nods, looking down at her knees. “You get two years. Then you have to reconcile or file for divorce.” 

“That must be coming up soon then.” 

“Yup,” Kono says with a sigh. 

Steve keeps quiet, waiting for her to do the talking. 

“Why do I feel like we’re not done?” Kono asks. “It all seemed so clear before I came back here. File for divorce, officially go our separate ways. But now...” 

“I tried to be done with Danny,” Steve says. 

“Yeah, I heard about that,” Kono says, socking him on the arm. “You visited Chin, but not me?” 

Steve winces. She didn’t pull it at all. “Ow, be careful with me. I’m an old man now.” 

“Old man, my ass.” Kono laughs and punches him on the arm again, with only slightly less force. “So what happened?” 

“Danny had other ideas,” Steve says with a helpless smile. “I’m the last person to give relationship advice, but I think if you’re asking that question, that probably means something.”

“Did you ever consider getting back with Catherine?” Kono asks. “I mean, before you and Danny.”

Steve smiles and shrugs ruefully. “Not even a little bit.” 

“He kissed me,” she explains. “Back in Russia. And then he tripped over his feet and apologized like 70 times.” 

Steve laughs, picturing it. 

“You know he told Danny that he joined 5-0 to be close to you.” Kono shoots him a look and Steve spreads his hands. “I’m serious.” 

She drops back flat onto the sand with a heavy sigh, looking up at the sky. “What am I even doing?” 

“You know there’s always a place for you on that team,” Steve says. “Especially with Danny leaving. They’ll keep it warm for you, until you decide.” 

She shades her eyes against the early morning sun. “I guess all I can do is wait and see.” 

“Are you guys having a party out here without me?” Danny calls. He’s coming down the beach wrapped in a blanket, a mug of coffee in his hand. 

“Is that for me?” Steve asks hopefully. 

“No it is not,” Danny says, holding it closer to his chest like Steve might make a grab for it. “So what are we doing?” 

“Waiting and seeing,” Kono says. 

Feeling the siren call of the ocean, Steve grins and rises to his feet, giving them both a little wave. He charges off into the cool surf, waves crashing around him. When he gets back, Danny will still be there, safe and sound. Exactly where he’s supposed to be.

☀

**Author's Note:**

> This is a weird time to be posting a story set in law enforcement. Even before this, I’ve had serious problems with Peter Lenkov’s conception of 5-0, especially the show’s stance on torture. I just want people to know that I’m aware of the serious problem of police violence, and I’m not seeking to glorify policing. Neither am I seeking to shame anybody here. I have difficult feelings wrestling with how media should necessarily depict characters and situations in alignment to current moral and political consciousness, especially when it functions as a form of escapism. I haven’t really found an answer, but I thought it was important to issue a personal disclaimer. 
> 
> The world that Steve and Danny exist in, for me, is set in a fantasy realm where Hawaii is rife with violent crime (in fact, violent crime is below the national average and has been relatively stable since 1990) and the frequent target of nuclear bomb threats. It’s a magic excellent place, but kids, in the real world, ask for a lawyer.


End file.
